In Rwanda election, no critical domestic press

"No one but you!" supporters of President Paul Kagame have shouted
at recent election rallies with many waving the red, white, and blue flags that
symbolize the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party, according to local and
international reports.
But journalists critical of the ruling party could not document firsthand the
campaign that ended today because the government systematically shut their news
outlets and swept them out of the country in a campaign of intimidation.

Heading into today's vote, Kagame was virtually certain to
win another seven-year term. He faced no credible challengers--two opposition
parties were banned--and critical domestic news coverage had been quashed.

In April, the government-influenced Media
High Council issued a six-month suspension to
two critical weeklies, Umuvugiziand Umuseso, for purportedly
inciting violence and criticizing the head of state. Chief Editor John-Bosco
Gasasira of Umuvugizi told me he fled
the country the same month after encountering threatening phone calls and surveillance
from military intelligence. In May, the managing director of Umuseso Didas Gasana also fled the
country fearing impending arrest. "It was getting tougher to bear," Gasana told
me. "As things appear now, the country has become practically impossible for
any critic or any opposition." Both publications launched websites to
circumvent state censorship, but within weeks both sites were blocked
within the country.

For many weeks, Gasasira remained defiant that his news
outlet would continue its work in the country. "Jean-Leonard Rugambage is my
deputy and he is going to continue operations of the paper," he told CPJ after
going in exile. But by June, Rugambage was shot dead
as he entered the gate of his home. Authorities claimed the killing was
retaliation for Rugambage's alleged involvement in the 1994 genocide--a charge
the government has not supported with evidence. Rugambage's wife, Epiphanie, felt
compelled to flee Rwanda with her 2-year-old child after plainclothes agents interrogated
her, Gasasira said.

Exiled journalists from Umuseso
launched a new weekly, Newsline, and
tried to ship the paper by bus into Rwanda in late June. "We put someone on the
border to pick up the copies," Gasana told CPJ, but police confiscated the paper,
briefly detained the bus driver, and imprisoned the conductor for four days. "I
felt terrible," Gasana said. "He was just a bus conductor with no ties to our
paper. We had no idea they would react in such a way."

Despite all this, both publications are still covering Rwndan
politics, albeit from afar and without deep domestic readership. "Even if you
can only manage to reach one person, it's worth it since they might pass the
information on to someone else," Gasana said. But reporting from exile is
challenging for both publications since sources fear speaking with them. "Our
sources are so intimidated that it proves challenging to cross-check
information, especially after the assassination of Rugambage. This has really
terrified both reporters and sources alike," Gasasira told me.

Police
arrested the editor of another critical paper, Umurabyo, in July, a month prior to the polling. Editor Agnès
Uwimana and colleague Saidati Mukakibibi were charged with a volley of criminal
charges including inciting violence through malicious propaganda and denial of
the 1994 genocide, local journalists told CPJ.

With few critical voices left in operation, one
wonders whether the electoral coverage could be thorough and impartial. The
Media High Council Executive Secretary Patrice Mulama told me that both private
and public media had done a decent job of covering the four presidential
candidates. The council opened a press
center in Kigali to assist reporters with election coverage and
ferried journalists to remote rural polling stations.

But the kicker, Gasana pointed out, lies with
the candidates themselves. All of the presidential candidates who were left in
the running have links to the ruling party, the BBC reported.
"Of course [the media] can cover all of the candidates without losing favor
with Kagame since none of them are genuine contenders," one local journalist
told me. Fearing for his safety, he spoke on condition of anonymity.

The targeting of journalists and opposition
candidates has led to considerable criticism of Kagame in international media.
"Kagame allows less political space and press freedom at home than Robert
Mugabe does in Zimbabwe," The
Economist charged recently.

The exiled Rwandan press, in fact, does seem
to be acting similarly to their exiled Zimbabwean colleagues. "The Zimbabwean
exiled media is the most dynamic, active press on the continent," the Federation of African
Journalists President Omar Faruk told me recently at his office in
Nairobi. Exiled Zimbabwean radio stations and newspapers such as SW Radio and The Zimbabweanhave gradually taken over both readership and the news agenda from the
state-run press. If the space for free expression closes further in Rwanda
after the polls, a similar scenario could take place. In the meantime, Newsline is readying a special election edition,
Gasana says.

Tom Rhodes is CPJ's East Africa representative, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of southern Sudan’s first independent newspaper. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ

Comments

Surely, I think that Rwanda government has to instaur press freedoom. The other side, we have to notice also the poor quality of independant journalists. Especially, those from Umuseso and Umuvugizi. these also have to improve and to leave the underground war which is harming right now the country.